Tampa Calling

“I’m so blessed to / have spent the time / with my family and the friends I love/ with my short life / I have met so many people I deeply care for”

These final chanted lyrics of Yeasayer’s “Red Cave” go a ridiculously long way in summarizing exactly what my recent trip to Chicago for the fifth annual Pitchfork Festival meant to me. While I’d been to the fest several times in the past (the first three, actually), this marked the first time that a huge group of old friends (LBHS stand up!) were able to meet up and enjoy the city and the music and the drunken shenanigans together. (Pictured at right: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips; all photos by R. Kevin Rose.)

What’d I learn? well, for starters… we are all official members of the POSI-ADULT CREW. Not straight edge — not even close — but definitely upbeat and affable. Positive, if you will. A group of kids raised on (amongst many, many other things) Bad Brains’ “P.M.A.”, Seven Seconds, Dag Nasty, Gorilla Biscuits, etc., who grew into a geographically dispersed crew of adults … all of us still kinda “Screaming For Change” in our own unique ways. (LOTS MORE PICS AND SHENANIGANS AFTER THE JUMP) Read the rest of this entry »

Jackson Browne settles his copyright case with the Republican Party, which played his 1977 hit, “Running on Empty” without permission in a McCain campaign ad that aired on TV and the Internet.

Pop Matters writer Charles A. Hohman offers a lengthy, media-packed analysis of Born in the U.S.A in honor of its 25th anniversary: “Sex in the U.S.A.: Male Sexuality in Springsteen’s American Dream.”

A new covers album of songs by New Zealand indie great and recent stroke victim Chris Knox features a rather respectable line up — Guided by Voices, the Mountain Goats, Jay Reatard, Yo La Tengo and Lambchop, among many others.

In answer to Animal Collective’s getting the go-ahead from the Grateful Dead for the experimental band to sample the jam grandfathers’ song, Blender offers up “Grateful Dead songs ready for sampling, and the artists that should sample them.”

YouTube and Warner Music still can’t agree about liscensing fees.

Chris Brown (pictured) makes a public apology for the assault on Rihanna last month.

Indie rock forefathers (parents) Yo La Tengo are gearing up to release Popular Songs, on September 8 via Matador. The follow-up to 2006’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass was recorded in Hoboken, N.J. and Nashville earlier this year.

From the Matador Records Blog:

We have an old saying at Matador HQ, “the only thing predictable about Yo La Tengo albums is their high level of excellence and crazy amount of musical ground covered”. Trouble is, even if you believe we really have an old saying that unwieldly, it doesn’t really do justice in this instance. The new Yo La Tengo CD/2XLP/digital album ‘Popular Songs’ (OLE 856-1,2) could be the bravest musical statement to date in a career full of ‘em. Recorded in Hoboken and Nashville in early 2009 with longtime associate Roger Mountenot, ‘Popular Songs’ finds the trio of Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew at the height of their creative powers, fashioning an epic work that’s cooly confident as it is wildly adventurous. (THE REST OF THE RELEASE AND NEW SINGLE, “Periodically Double Or Triple,” AFTER THE JUMP.) Read the rest of this entry »

A review by The 941 and Tampa Calling blogger and Creative Loafing Sarasota editor Cooper Levy-Baker.

For all intents and purposes, the Condo Fucks’ Fuckbook is the 13th studio LP from Yo La Tengo, even if the Matador Records website for the “band” never mentions the words “Yo,” “La” or “Tengo.”

There are plenty of clues to go around. One: The name “Condo Fucks” comes from a fake promo card Matador printed up and inserted in Yo La Tengo’s 1997 classic, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Two: In 1990, Yo La Tengo released a covers disc titled Fakebook (the name comes from musical sheets that outline the bare essentials of a tune — melody, chords, lyrics — and allow performers to learn new songs on the fly). Three: The Fucks website lists the band’s members as “Georgia Condo (drums), Kid Condo (guitar) and James McNew (bass)”; the members of Yo La Tengo happen to be Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew.

And, four (as if you needed it): Recording a half-hour’s worth of fuzzy, Nuggets-like garage rock covers under an in-joke assumed name and then making a short “documentary” about the impact of the fake band on the music scene of southern Connecticut, well, that just seems like the kind of thing Yo La Tengo would do.

“I have no intention of explaining things more fully,” Yo La Tengo guitarist/singer Ira Kaplan told me in an interview two years ago, and that sentiment runs all through the band’s history: the Spanish-language group name (”I have it”), the beguiling album titles (I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass), the jokey songs (”Georgia Vs. Yo La Tengo,” “The Story of Yo La Tango”). This is a group unafraid to leave its audience guessing, and they never seem interested in clearing things up for definitive interpretation.

So Condo Fucks. Fuckbook. Yeah, it kind of makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »

This just in from Pitch Perfect PR:

PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FRIDAY’S LINE-UP PLUS SELECT ACTS PERFORMING SATURDAY & SUNDAY
The 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival — to be held in Chicago’s Union Park Friday, July 17 – Sunday, July 19 — is announcing the first round of band’s to perform at this years festival, as well as a new series that will include Friday’s performances. On Friday, the festival welcomes Yo La Tengo, The Jesus Lizard (first show in Chicago in 11 years!), Tortoise and Built to Spill; Saturday will see performances by The National, Pharoahe Monch, and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, while Sunday’s event includes Grizzly Bear, The Walkmen and Vivian Girls!

Yo La Tengo

This year, the Pitchfork Music Festival is mixing things up a bit and putting the set lists in the hands of the fans, under a new series titled “Write the Night: Set Lists By Request.” When someone buys a ticket they will receive a confirmation e-mail that will include a link to a web page where they can vote on which of each band’s songs they’d like to hear during their set — and truly be the ones to “Write the Night.” Voting will begin on March 13 (when tickets go on sale) and will end on June 12.

To recap the 2009 line-up so far:

Friday – “Write the Night: Set Lists by Request”
Built to Spill
The Jesus Lizard
Yo La Tengo
Tortoise

Saturday
The National
Pharoahe Monch
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Sunday
Grizzly Bear
The Walkmen
Vivian Girls